Crosswords is a fab little Nottingham-based spoken word open mic night with plenty of open mic slots and a featured poet every month! In April, we have Aoife O’Connor, Emericana Desouza and Jo Lewis from She Speaks as our special guests!
She Speaks UK is a monthly performance space in the East Midlands hosted by Aoife, Emericana and Jo. It’s an inclusive and supportive safe space promoting and platforming female, trans, non-binary & femme-identifying artists. Events are female-led but not female exclusive with an open mic for all genders and an open audience. The co-founders are proud to hold a space where first-time performers are warmly encouraged, yet perform alongside well-established headliners.
She Speaks was founded in 2017 with the tagline “Art Is Our Liberation” and has since collaborated with organisations including International Women’s Day Festival Derby, LGB-QWERTY, Artcore, Furthest From The Sea, Nottingham Contemporary and Derby Women’s Centre. She Speaks has hosted as part of the Derby Poetry Festival in 2017, featuring the Trinidadian poet Shivanee Ramlochan and again in 2018, featuring Bristol based poet Vanessa Kisuule.
In 2018 the collective began reaching out to more groups in their community through facilitating workshops including creative writing & performance skills for young people as well as craftivism for women & girls.
Arrive at the Cock and Hoop from 7:30pm on the night to put your name in the hat for a short open mic slot. We like poetry, prose, storytelling, a cappella singing, and monologues! Or you can just come along to listen – everyone’s welcome! Entry is £2 per person and refreshments are available.
The She Speaks Founders, Jo, Em and Aoife.
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NB. There are twelve steps to access this venue.
Crosswords is a fab little Nottingham-based spoken word open mic night with plenty of open mic slots and a featured poet every month! In December, we really excited to welcome Nafeesa Hamid as our guest poet!
Nafeesa Hamid is a British Pakistani poet and playwright. She is an alumnus of Mouthy Poets and Derby Theatre Graduate Associate Artists. She has performed at Cheltenham and Manchester Lit Fests as part of The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women Write, a recent (2017) anthology, edited by Sabrina Mahfouz. She was a BBC Edinburgh Fringe Slam finalist in 2018. Nafeesa’s debut poetry collection ‘Besharam’ (2018) is now available from Verve Poetry Press.
Arrive at the Cock and Hoop from 7:30pm on the night to put your name in the hat for a short open mic slot. We like poetry, prose, storytelling, a cappella singing, and monologues! Or you can just come along to listen – everyone’s welcome! Entry is £2 per person and refreshments are available.
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NB. There are eleven steps to access this venue.
Crosswords is a fab little Nottingham-based spoken word open mic night with plenty of open mic slots and a featured poet every month!
In November, we really excited to welcome Ioney Smallhorne as our guest poet!
Ioney is a writer and poet based in Nottingham. When performing she’s occasionally funny, at times vulnerable, tends to blend the political with the personal – but she’s always Ioney. When not writing poems, she’s failing her motorbike test, growing vegetables, travelling and trying to learn Italian. Currently studying a MA in Creative Writing & Education at Goldsmiths University London, Ioney is a First Story workshop facilitator, a film maker and enjoys translating her poems to the screen.
Arrive at the Cock and Hoop from 7:30pm on the night to put your name in the hat for a short open mic slot. We like poetry, prose, storytelling, a cappella singing, and monologues! Or you can just come along to listen – everyone’s welcome! Entry is £2 per person and refreshments are available. There are eleven steps to access this venue.
For more information, check out our facebook event page:
A special Halloween canal voyage filled with ghostly stories and terrible tall tales from the waterways gruesome past.
For the first time in Nottingham we want to send you on a sinister journey along the dark canal with Leanne Moden. The thirty-minute journey will be filled with fantastic fables and mysterious myths of the strange people and creatures who call the waterways their home. For this night only you will visit the spooky watery dwellings where your imagination will be fired by the depth of dark mystery led by our storyteller on a journey you will never forget.
Suitable for over 16 and not for the faint hearted.
Boats set off from outside the courthouse on the canal towpath, access is via Wilford Road or Carrington Street, NG2 1EE.
Tickets are £5 per person and the event is funded by Arts Council England.
Crosswords is a fab little Nottingham-based spoken word open mic night with plenty of open mic slots and a featured poet every month!
In October, we’re teaming up with We Shall Overcome, a fantastic grassroots movement that raises money and awareness for anti-austerity causes. We’ll be raising money for Inspire Nottingham – a fantastic charity that supports adults with learning difficulties in the greater Nottingham area.
We’ll have a headline slot from brilliant Yorkshire-based poet and activist Henry Raby. Raised on a steady diet of punk music, his poetry is a combination of angry and unruly verse on feminism, anarchism and protest movements mixed with tender insights into community, friendship and the tricky art of growing up. His performance style is an anarchic and energetic tumble from cartoons and comics to politics and dinosaurs. His first poetry collection, Nerd Punk, was released through Burning Eye Books in April 2018.
Henry has gigged across the UK at spoken word nights, festival stages, cafes, libraries and living rooms. In 2015 he was commissioned by Apples & Snakes as part of their Public Address Tour. Henry is Artistic Director of Say Owt, a spoken word-promoting organisation, and is co-director of Vandal Factory Theatre Company.
Arrive at the Cock and Hoop from 7:30pm on the night to book your short open mic slot. We like poetry, prose, storytelling, a cappella singing, and monologues! Or you can just come along to listen – everyone’s welcome! Entry is £2 per person and refreshments are available.
